What, but a blessing of kindly thought, Sweet as the breath of forget-me-not--! What, but a spirit of lustrous love White as the aster he bends above--! What, but an odorous memory Of the dear old man, made known to me In days demanding a help like his--, As sweet as the life of the lily is-- As sweet as the soul of a babe, bloom-wise Born of a lily in paradise. _The Beautiful City_ The Beautiful City! Forever Its rapturous praises resound; We fain would behold it-- but never A glimpse of its dory is found: We slacken our lips at the tender White breasts of our mothers to hear Of its marvellous beauty and splendor--; We see-- but the gleam of a tear! Yet never the story may tire us-- First graven in symbols of stone-- Rewritten on scrolls of papyrus And parchment, and scattered and blown By the winds of the tongues of all nations, Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled Down the rack of a hundred translations, From the earliest lisp of the world. We compass the earth and the ocean, From the Orient's uttermost light, To where the last ripple in motion Lips hem of the skirt of the night--, But the Beautiful City evades us-- No spire of it glints in the sun-- No glad-bannered battlement shades us When all our Journey is done. Where lies it? We question and listen; We lean from the mountain, or mast, And see but dull earth, or the glisten Of seas inconceivably vast: The dust of the one blurs our vision, The glare of the other our brain, Nor city nor island Elysian In all of the land or the main! We kneel in dim fanes where the thunders Of organs tumultuous roll, And the longing heart listens and wonders, And the eyes look aloft from the soul: But the chanson grows fainter and fainter, Swoons wholly away and is dead; AND our eyes only reach where the painter Has dabbled a saint overhead. The Beautiful City! O mortal, Fare hopefully on in thy quest, Pass down through the green grassy portal That leads to the Valley of Rest; There first passed the One who, in pity Of all thy great yearning, awaits To point out The Beautiful City, And loosen the trump at the gates. _Lockerbie Street_ Such a dear little street it is, nestled away From the noise of the city and heat of the day, In cool shady coverts of whispering trees, With their leaves lifted up to shake hands with the breeze Which in all its wide wanderings never may meet With a resting-place fairer than Lockerbie street! There is such a relief, from the clangor and din Of the heart of the town, to go loitering in Through the dim, narrow walks, with the sheltering shade Of the trees waving over the long promenade, And littering lightly the ways of our feet With the gold of the sunshine of Lockerbie street.